Highlights from the speech

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CORRECTION

A caption Wednesday on Page 11A with a photo of Rex, a German shepherd in the House gallery during the State of the Union address, incorrectly referred to Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana. She was not pictured.

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First-class seats

One guest in the Speaker's Gallery on Tuesday night was Pfc. Joshua Sparling, 24, a paratrooper with Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Division.

Sparling is a patient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, recovering from an injury he suffered Nov. 18 in Ramadi, Iraq, while on foot patrol.

While recovering, Sparling got a piece of mail containing the message: "Have a great time dieing [sic] in the war." After the letter made the news, more than 20,000 cards came in wishing the Yale, Mich., native well.

Seatmates of first lady Laura Bush included a leader of the Afghan parliament, Fawzia Koofi, and a Freedom Corps volunteer, Ja'Detrus Hamilton of Leakesville, Miss.

Also sitting with her was Rex, a 5-year-old German shepherd, who fit in with the other guests of Republicans and Democrats who have served in the Iraq war.

There, Rex sniffed out bombs. He's been the subject of congressional legislation. He's famous, and Wednesday night he was one of Mrs. Bush's guests at the State of the Union speech.

How he landed such a coveted seat -- actually a spot in the aisle labeled "Rex" on the official seating chart -- is quite a tale.

His owner, Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jamie Dana, awoke in a military hospital last summer badly injured by a bomb in Iraq and crying for her bomb-sniffing dog. Someone told her Rex was dead.

Later, Dana found out that was not true. But it would take an act of Congress before she could take him home to Pennsylvania.

The Air Force had said it spent $18,000 training Rex and that, by statute, he needed to finish the remaining five years of his useful life before he could be adopted. Dana's congressman, Rep. John Peterson, R-Pa., helped include an exception for Rex in an end-of-year defense bill.

No less interesting are the other guests of Republicans and Democrats, who ranged from parents of fallen soldiers to the mayor of Washington and survivors and rescue personnel from Hurricane Katrina.

Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif., played host to Cindy Sheehan, whose vigil for her 24-year-old soldier son killed in Iraq, Casey, reinvigorated the national anti-war movement.

Also expected in Mrs. Bush's box were the family of Marine Staff Sgt. Dan Clay, 27, who was killed Dec. 1 in Fallujah.

Democrats offered a gallery seat to Benny Rousselle, president of Plaqemines Parish, La., which was heavily damaged by Katrina.

Sheehan arrested

Sheehan, the mother of a fallen soldier in Iraq, was arrested and removed from the House gallery Tuesday night just before President Bush's State of the Union address, a police spokeswoman said.

Sheehan, who had been invited to attend the speech by Woolsey, was charged with demonstrating in the Capitol building, a misdemeanor, said Capitol Police Sgt. Kimberly Schneider. Sheehan was taken in handcuffs to police headquarters a few blocks away, and her case was processed as Bush spoke.

Schneider said Sheehan had worn a T-shirt with an anti-war slogan to the speech and covered it up until she took her seat. Police warned her that such displays were not allowed, but she did not respond, the spokeswoman said.

Police handcuffed Sheehan and removed her from the gallery before Bush arrived. Sheehan was to be released on her own recognizance, Schneider said.

Woolsey offered Sheehan a ticket to the speech -- Gallery 5, seat 7, row A -- earlier Tuesday while Sheehan was attending an "alternative state of the union" press conference by CODEPINK, a group pushing for an end to the Iraq war.